Chapter 2

      It was Charlotte’s idea, of course. Charlotte loved any excuse for a bash and she wasn’t going to let this one go.

      ‘Makes so much sense,’ she announced, tossing back her mass of fair curls. ‘We pool our resources, friends and legendary organisational skills and put on an extravaganza.’ She threw out her arms as if to include the multitudes. ‘I’m thinking the pavilion. Broadstairs won’t know what’s hit it.’

      Wine had been taken so immediately a committee was formed. Charlotte would be Chair, because traditionally she threw the best parties. Fay would be treasurer as she ran her own business; Roz quickly offered to take the notes, grasping an excuse to say as little as possible, until she’d figured out how the hell she’d manage this, while Sherie had laughed and smoothed back her expensively-streaked blonde hair.

      ‘And I shall sit and look decorative.’

      ‘There’s a change,’ Fay had growled.

      ‘You can be Artistic Director,’ said Charlotte decisively. ‘Colour schemes?’

      As they fell to discussing the various merits of silver and black against burgundy and grey, Roz had felt the familiar tightening in her stomach. Now, three weeks later, as she looked at the notepad on her lap where she’d rapidly listed the latest ideas tumbling from Charlotte’s mouth for a party she couldn’t begin to finance, her anxiety deepened. She could barely afford the coffee they were drinking and Fay had just waved her hand for more.

      ‘We need to fix this date,’ Charlotte was saying, lounging back comfortably on the squishy leather sofa in ‘Le Café’, the town’s latest coffee lounge. ‘The pav is knee-deep in weddings, of course, in June but they have got a Saturday in July–’

      ‘We could always do a Friday–’ said Sherie.

      ‘But people who are travelling a long way might be at work till six.’ Roz smiled tightly. ‘Some of us have fixed hours!’

      ‘The Saturday is the 28^th,’ said Charlotte. ‘Shall I book it then?’

      ‘Depends who wants to wait and who wants to do it early,’ said Fay briskly.

      Charlotte’s birthday was just four weeks away in May, Roz’s in late June. Fay’s birthday wasn’t until August and Sherie was the baby of the group, hanging on to forty-nine until late September. Or – knowing Sherie – several years longer.

      ‘The mid-way point,’ continued Fay, always the one they turned to for mental arithmetic, ‘is around the 20^th July, so that would work. She looked at Sherie. ‘Are you OK with it being so long before yours?’

      ‘Absolutely! I can be smug. I’ll still be forty-nine.’

      Sherie was smiling but Roz thought she looked anxious too. She was playing with a strand of her hair the way she used to at school when they had an exam looming that neither of them had revised for. Roz knew that for all the lightness of tone, that Sherie was the one struggling the most with her impending big birthday.

      ‘Yes, well you’re married and have children,’ Sherie had said sharply, when Charlotte had said that personally, she didn’t give a fig about age, wrinkles or being menopausal.

      ‘And I’ll be young for one more week!’ put in Fay. ‘I think that timing will be perfect for me – I’ll have just about got over the hangover when you all come round for cake.’

      ‘Cake!’ Charlotte’s eyes lit up. ‘Now what do we think? Are cupcake towers a bit passé – how about a profiterole mountain?’ She settled herself deeper into the cushions. ‘One of my clients had a sort of waterfall wedding cake with all these fish leaping down it – hundreds of them in different coloured sugar. They gave each guest one to take home. It was amazing – she’s got pictures up on Instagram if you want to see.’ Charlotte grinned. ‘It cost two grand.’

      ‘Lunacy,’ said Fay dismissively, as Roz shuddered.

      Roz knew that if she said anything about being worried, Charlotte would pay. Charlotte had settled the bill in the wine bar last time, picking up on Roz’s unease as the evening wore on and the bottles kept coming, automatically being as kind and generous as she always was. ‘I’ve just had a fat commission,’ she’d said casually. ‘Let me.’

      Charlotte always seemed to have just landed a lump of money – her one-woman estate-agency-come-house-styling